Reflections on Womanhood for International Women’s Day 2019

March is Women’s History Month and today, March 8th, is International Women’s Day. Being a West African Black woman with albinism has been such a complex, often challenging, and ultimately teachable experience. Today I wanted to take some time to really reflect on what it has meant to me to be a woman.

The Power of Being a Woman

For me womanhood has been an exploration of navigating different spheres and identities. It has been exhilarating and liberating. Because of my privileged position of living in a Western hemisphere developed nation, I haven’t had to face the harsh and stifling challenges that many women living in developing nations or oppressive cultures have and continue to face daily.

I don’t have any brothers and I was raised by a single mother. I grew up constantly surrounded by feminine energy and I never for one moment doubted the power and abilities that women posses.

As a child I was scrappy, creative, and cerebral. As I got older and entered adolescence, I turned inward more. It took me several years before I finally started to feel like I was tapping into my destiny and possessing the full power of my womanhood. It took gaining my independence, providing for and supporting myself, creating a career out of thin air, and doing it all while bleeding once a month to understand that women are truly the most powerful beings on Earth.

Women are empathetic yet strong and endlessly resilient. We know how to be told no, have doors shut in our face, be doubted, be underestimated, be undermined, and still succeed.

My favorite women are the kind of women that are self-defined. They don’t subscribe to anyone else’s notion of what they should be. They always try and sometimes that means failing boldly. They are elastic and they bounce back better than ever. They constantly evolve. Everyday I strive to be that kind of woman.